A Newcomer's Guide to the Trappists

Monastic Discipline - The Vows

Trappist monks and nuns make promises to God and to each other as an expression of love and a desire to commit themselves to lasting relationships. Below we answer to your questions about the vows taken by Trappists.

If you take a vow of obedience, does it mean you aren't free anymore to do what you want?

A Trappist who promises obedience to his superior will not be able to do everything he wants. But then, if he were to get married or be hired to work for a successful company, or devoted himself to mountain climbing, he would also not be free to to anything he liked. What is unusual about a Trappist is that he doesn't just obey because circumstances force him to, or because it's going to earn him a lot of money to buy a fancy car or a big house. A monk promises to be obedient because he sees obedience as an expression of love: love for God, love for his brothers, and love for Truth. If you think about it, you will realize freedom isn't the ultimate good in our life. By our freedom we can embrace what is good or embrace what is evil, and in the second case, will bring ourselves much suffering and confusion. It is Truth that reveals to us what is good and bad, and whether our exercise of freedom is good or bad. This explains why a parent is responsible for helping a child to understand what good behavior and a good life are like. It is because the parent has a better grasp of the truth about these things and so their guidance is true. A Trappist promises to be obedient to his superior because he loves God who is Truth and he trusts his superior to lead him toward understanding and love of Truth. In the process of learning what is true and learning to love what is true, the monk is always free to “do what he wants”, but will ask himself again and again: “What do I really want?” The more he asks himself this question, the more clear it becomes that the deepest desire of his heart is to know and embrace the Truth that is God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.

Show More

What does it mean that a monk takes a "Vow of Stability"?

This is a promise a monk makes to remain for the rest of his life a member of one community of brothers . In ancient times, there were monks who were wanderers. They had no home and belonged to no stable community. They were the embodiment of the idea that a Christian has no place in this world to call his home because his true home is in heaven. But, some of these monks were undisciplined and became very selfish and preoccupied with their own desires. With time and the benefit of experience, monks realized that most men or women who are serious about knowing and loving God need to put down roots and remain with one group of brothers or sisters their whole life their whole life long.

Trappists have learned that if a person is steadfast and true in his relationships with ones brothers or sisters, then one will grow to be more and more faithful in one's friendship with God. It seems the human heart grows strong by exercising and staying put in one community until the day you die is very good exercise for the heart! St. Benedict taught that there are certain “good works” by which a person grows in love and in holiness and that a person is most likely to benefit from these good works by living in a monastic enclosure and in a stable community. You can also think of the vow of stability as a promise of obedience by which a monk or nun promises to observe and support all the very particular ways their community lives out the monastic ideal. Faithfulness to the vow of stability builds character, makes a person stronger, more steadfast in love and firm in his or her decisions.

Show More

What do Trappists mean when they say they "live a life of poverty"?

On the day a Trappist monk or nun give themselves to Christ completely, they make a “vow of conversion”; a promise to convert their whole life to the pattern of the life of Christ. Jesus was a poor man who had no where to lay his head. A Trappist believes the deepest source of happiness is to be more and more like Jesus. When a Trappist takes “Solemn Vows”, he renounces ownership of all his possessions – everything, and from that day forward calls nothing his own. Actually, on a more practical level, the life of poverty becomes a life of sharing. Having renounced the capacity to own anything myself, (even a pencil!), I have to share everything with the other monks. My religious habit, the jeans and boots I wear when I go to work, my bed linens and the towels I use to dry myself off after a shower, the pen I write with and the scissors I use trim my hair – all these I receive from my brothers to use as need arises. It is understood that I keep nothing for my own private use. If my family sends me cookies or candy at Christmas, I receive it gratefully and share it with my brothers, who share with me their home made goodies. A life of poverty means a life free of grabbing and hoarding. It means a life uncomplicated by the duplicity of maintaining a “secret stash”. The poverty of a Trappist awakens him to the mystery that everything – absolutely everything is gift!

Show More

When you enter a Trappist monastery, do you have to give up everything right away?

No. As a matter of fact, a candidate is not permitted to give away all his or her possessions right away, even if they really want to – and some really want to! The truth is, the call to be a Trappist monk or nun takes time to discern. If a person gave away all their money and everything they possess, they might later come to see that they are not being called by God to be a monk. But then they would need to make a new start in the world and would have no resources to do this. In this situation, they might be tempted to stay in the monastery simply for fear of the hardship awaiting them outside. For these reasons, we require that a candidate retain possession of some money and possessions during their Novitiate so that if they decide to leave they can make a new beginning in the world. When they take Temporary Vows and become a “Junior”, they still have possession of their belongings but are not permitted to exercise any control over them. Finally, on the day he or she makes their Solemn Vows by which they radically divest themselves of everything and donate themselves wholly to God, they renounce entirely all they possess.

Show More

What does it mean that Trappist monks and nuns practice consecrated celibacy?

Monks and nuns live celibate lives. They are unmarried. They don’t go out with people, they try to avoid getting romantically involved, they don’t raise families, they don’t engage in sexual intercourse. Their celibacy is part of their vow to be faithful to monastic life in community. To say it better, monastic celibacy is about love. Saint Augustine says that love is the enjoyment of God, yourself, and other people for God’s sake. But God is love (1 John 4:8), so we love for love’s sake. As Saint Bernard says, “The reason for love is love itself.” What he means is, love is not self-centered (that is egoism) and it is not other-centered (that is infatuation). Love is for love’s own sake, and God is love. There are many ways people can love like this. The Trappist's way is as a celibate.

Love is the gift of oneself to another. Sexuality is the exercise of this love. That means that love has an erotic color to it. Sexuality is the energy of self-gift. In marriage, the spouses consecrate their sexuality to one another, including the genital expression of their sexuality. From that consecration, they free up their love energy to overflow to an ever-wider circle of people, beginning with their children for whom sexuality is manifested not genitally but through nurture, protection, education, care, and all things that protect and promote life.

The Trappist's sexuality, like the married person’s is consecrated, too. A Scriptural basis for the monk’s consecrated sexuality is this verse from 1 Corinthians: “Whoever clings to the Lord is one Spirit with him” (6:17). This is erotic language. Just look at Gen 2:24. Paul had that verse from Genesis in mind when he wrote what he did to the Corinthians. The monk is a consecrated person. His whole life including his body with all its energies is dedicated to God. He’s dedicated for the purpose of being united to God, “clinging” to God, and God to him.

Topics in Monastic Discipline

About This Web Site

Our website intends to answer the needs of men and women discerning a call from God to a be a Trappist monk or nun. If what you see and read here awakens in you a desire to follow Christ in the silence and solitude of a Trappist monastery, know that this is God working in your heart in response to our prayers. Please contact us and be assured that we are ready to offer you our love and assistance in your discernment process.